Does Segregation in America Still Exist?

Race

Orfield (2009) points out, in the beginning of his article, that after fifty-five years from the historical Brown decision, segregation in school remains a big problem for the African-American and Latino populations, quite often to a higher degree than before. As he continues, this trend is particularly worrisome in suburban locations and in ghetto locations in the cities as well.

This paper, however, argues that this is more a consequence of economic and social factors rather than a racial issue, as in the past. The documentary Detropia provides useful arguments towards this thesis. The first thing to consider is that communities tend to be static rather than dynamic. This is a statement that is true not only for Africa-American and Latino communities, but also for Chinese or even European communities. It is much simpler for people to remain within the same community, benefiting from its protection (from an economic and social perspective) than to move out of the community and search for one's fortune elsewhere.

The most important part of the movie in support of this statement comes not necessarily from the fact that the three main characters are African-American principals, but rather from the fact that the movie reflects the impact of socio-economic conditions on a large city such as Detroit and, in more detail, on the communities that make up the city. One of these consequences is, in fact, also the fact that Detroit has become a racially charged city, as communities battle over the small existing economic opportunities.

Parisi (2011) brings into the debate additional interesting arguments. Two of these are worth pointing out. The first is that America is a post-racial society, but that this tendency is actually a slow process that will take a long period of time to fully accomplish, if that will happen at all. The second is that Parisi's study decomposes racial segregation and notices interesting patterns, primarily the fact that African-Americans are usually more segregated in comparison with both white populations and Hispanic or Asian populations. In turn, the latter are also less segregated as compared to white population than African-American communities.

The static nature of communities and its consequence, racial segregation, may also be a result of the educational system in the United States, where students go to school based on geographic criteria. As such, it becomes natural that students from a certain part of the city will attend a certain school, the one that has been geographically allocated to that district. If the respective district is predominantly African-American, the school becomes a racially segregated school, although this consequence would not have occurred because of a particular proactive action.